The 10in10 Giveaway.....

Further to my last post when I told you about Andrew Sykes the author of 'Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike called Reggie' supporting us on our Ten Countries in Ten Days ride with an article on his Cycling Europe site................

Well, he has been even more supportive and has sent us three signed copies of his book which we can use to help raise more funds for our chosen charity Cyclist Fighting Cancer.

So this is what we are going to do:

The FIRST THREE DONATIONS of £25 (Twenty Five Pounds) or more that we receive after 0900hrs British Summer Time on the morning of SUNDAY 02nd JUNE 2013 will not only have the pleasure of supporting children and young people affected by cancer but will also receive from the 10in10 Team & Andrew Sykes one of the signed copies of his book...

So: The FIRST THREE Donations
of          £25.00GBP      or more
received after 0900hrs BST on SUNDAY 02nd JUNE 2013
will get a signed copy of 'Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike called Reggie'.

The winners of these books, which I must say is a first class read, will be announced on the PurpleTraveller Blog following the third £25.00 donation... I will tell you at that time how you can send us your address details.........
We will cover the postage of the book and this is open to ALL, wherever in the world you ride your bike........

The excitement is building......

With just eleven clear days left until the start of our Ten Countries in Ten Days ride the excitement is really starting to build up. 
All the months of planning and the Highs & Lows of our training are all about to come together... 
No matter how many of these various cycle challenges I do I can't help but get excited as the start date draws closer for a new ride.... 

The extended 'cycling family' is really starting to get behind us judging by the level of support we are now seeing from donations to our team site . 
We are now starting to get into striking distance of the target we set ourselves as the fund raising goal for this ride.... Lets hope we have a similar level of success with the actual ride itself.... 

Talking about the extended cycling family.... following our article in the latest edition of Cycling Active magazine we have now got Andrew Sykes the author of the book 'Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a bike called Reggie' supporting us on our 10in10.

Andrew has posted an article about us on his Cycling Europe website. You can see it HERE .
He will also be retweeting our tweets as we progress on our ride and might be posting further coverage on CyclingEurope.org . 

As I said the extended cycling family is really starting to get behind us on our challenge. It all helps to build the excitement.....

Trusted with the Tifosi....

Bicycle World... Longham

We all have one..... a trusted local bike shop.... Apologies for the poor quality photo here, but this is a picture of my favourite LBS...

I have been using the services of Bicycle World at Longham for about the past five years. In reality they are not really 'local' for me. In fact I pass two or three other bike shops on the eight mile journey whenever I go there, but you know what it's like...you find someone who gives you a good service that you are happy with and you find yourself just going back there time and time again....

Bicycle World have supplied me with some major cycling purchases over those five years, including my Fulcrum Racing Zero wheels as well as my beloved Felt Carbon Z series bike and the Mavic Touring wheels for the Revolution. 
They have also carried out some major upgrades to both the Revolution Tourer and the Tifosi and I have always entrusted my bikes to them for preparation prior to my big cycling challenges and that is where the Tifosi is right now.....being prepped ready for the Ten Countries in Ten Days challenge that I will be starting in less than three weeks time....

I'm quite happy to carry out most average and minor jobs to the bikes, but I'm not a mechanic and it is always good to have another pair of knowledgeable eyes checkout the bikes....
On top of that I have always found the staff at Bicycle World very friendly and nothing has ever been too much trouble for them, even though I am quite a demanding customer in terms of my requirement for perfection with anything to do with my bikes.....

I am really happy to give them a little plug here on the purpletraveller blog....happy in the knowledge that the Tifosi will be better prepared for the 10in10 than I will be....!!

No Cake...No Candles....Not even a mention.....

With all the goings on of this past weekend and the shall I ride or not decisions that I was struggling with, one major anniversary was completely missed..... 
There was No Cake...No Candles.... Not even a mention by any one I know and completely overlooked by me.... 

So what was it...Was it the anniversary of buying one of my bikes? Could it be the date that Anne and I first met...Was it the date of my first day at school? No, it was none of these..... 
It was in fact the 5th Anniversary of this very blog........ 'Purpletraveller'.

Now I'm not going to bore you with lots of statistics showing the number of hits in those early days and comparisons year on year....that's pretty boring stuff... Suffice to say that I get a lot more hits these days..... also over the past eighteen months the growth has been pretty amazing beating the previous three and a half years a number of times over...

I started the blog on the suggestion of a friend from the Backpackers Club....he kept on about me writing a blog and in the end I gave in and set up PT.
Initially it was going to be just about backpacking and camping, but in the way that blogs do, it seemed to take on a life of it's own and eventually developed into a blog mainly about cycling in it's various forms plus a bit of camping and other stuff thrown in the mix for good measure...

Sportives...Touring rides...Long Distance Endurance rides....Long Distance walking...Camping trips...Backpacking....Weekend walking...Product reviews.... It's all been here at the Purpletraveller blog. It's a mix that works for me and it seems to work for a lot of you too, judging by the hit & page view growth over these past five years.....

So No Cake and No Candles.......
.....just a big thank you to all the visitors to the blog both regular and occasional...

Here is a link back to that very first posting on the 12th May 2008

The Beast is tamed....

As I reported yesterday  I made the decision not to ride the Jurassic Beast Sportive due to failing to recover sufficiently from my latest illness....I couldn't really stay away though..!!

Another decision was made that Anne & I and my Daughter would take my grandsons to the Tank museum whilst my son in law did his stuff...I mean someone had to fly the family flag and ride the blessed thing.... 
The Sportive starts and finishes at the Bovington Tank museum so it all seemed to fit in well....certainly better that moping around at home because I couldn't ride it myself.....
Let me tell you, 2-3 hrs in a tank museum with a couple of youngsters probably took more out of me than if I had ridden the beast myself....

I was hoping to see Jon Joynes one of the 10in10 crew at the finish, as he was the only member of the team who actually rode the Beast even though we had all planned on riding it. 
My reason for not riding it you already know about....
Lorenzo is in Switzerland reportedly checking our route for the 10in10 ride....
John Donoghue who we had heard nothing from for a few days informed us that he couldn't ride due to a strained back...so that just left Jon...

 Unfortunately I didn't manage to meet up with him but he sent me a text letting me know that he finished the course OK, but about halfway around he developed a knee joint problem that slowed him up a bit...  

What with dodgy backs...iffy knees...and a person (me) who doesn't seem able to get on top of his health, things don't seem to be looking that encouraging  for our 10in10 ride in less than four weeks time... 
We have even lost our mechanic, as Steve is now unable to be with us on the trip......It certainly means that the Ten Countries in Ten Days ride is going to be very interesting indeed!!

Anyway...Scott, my son in law, completed the Beast arriving back almost spot on the time that he was aiming for... The official times are not published yet but he reckons he did it at around 4hrs25mins which he is hoping is enough to scrape in on a silver time..... I will let you know in due course whether he achieved the silver time or not....

At least one of the family managed to ride it and I'm happy about that......

POSTSCRIPT:
I've just seen the official times..Scott got his Silver with a time of 4:27:15....!!

Missed it.....

I never get the camera out in time...

I often stop at this bridge at Corfe, before completing the last few miles back to the Sandbanks chain link ferry, towards the end of some of my rides around the Purbecks...
As I am standing there chewing on an energy bar and taking a swig of energy drink from my bottle I often hear the whistle that indicates that the steam train on the Swanage Railway is approaching. 

Usually when I am out on the Tifosi or the Felt I just carry my do it all mobile phone and use the camera app on that for my photos...anyway by the time I have managed to remove the phone from one of my jersey pockets...sorted out the camera function and taken a picture... the train has usually already passed by as can be seen in the picture here... 

The train was travelling from right to left of the shot...note the puff of smoke above the second carriage..that's where the loco was when I started to get the phone from my pocket...
There is also a delay on the phone camera from touching the 'button'  and the 'shutter' actually activating.... so when using the phone as my camera most of my action shots end up looking like this...I end up missing it!

Tomorrow the Jurassic Beast Sportive riders will be riding under this bridge as they make their way to the top of the ridge before dropping down towards the sea at Swanage...
In my last post I mentioned how I had three days or so to recover from my latest bout of illness and prepare to ride the sportive with other members of the 10in10 team.... 

Sometimes I suppose we just have to accept defeat... 
I've recovered enough to get out of bed and this morning I had to make a decision regarding tomorrows ride. 
Unfortunately it became obvious that the sensible thing was not to ride...
I still feel a complete lack of energy and my legs are feeling like lead... 

With only 28 days left to go until we set off on the 10in10 ride I don't want to do anything stupid that might jeopardize my ability to ride Ten Countries in Ten Days... So as far as the Jurassic Beast is concerned it's a similar end as my attempts to capture a photo of that train.....
I am going to miss it!!

After the Training Camp.....

After the training camp it was back home to a bank holiday weekend....trying to get back into Bournemouth with all the holiday traffic seemed to double my journey time...perhaps I should have  travelled by bike.!!

On the Saturday I went over to Lorenzo's coffee shop/delicatessen to lend a hand with some fundraising for our 10in10 ride...The customers at Lorenzo's have been really generous as can be seen if you visit our Team site .

On the Sunday I went to see my grandson Miles compete in his second mini triathlon.... 
He did one last year and for some strange reason he wanted to have another go at it this year...

Now to be honest triathlon is not something that I have ever felt the desire to do...probably because I would be pretty useless at it...all that splashing around in water...then having to ride my  bike and then finish it all with running makes me feel quite worn out just thinking about it....no I will stick with the riding the bike bit on it's own....but it was great to see Miles do his stuff and collect another medal for the family medal collection.!!

...another medal!

Unfortunately on the Monday, the roller coaster of my 2013 health problems took another bashing, as I went down with yet another bug which knocked me for six....one minute I was feeling fine and the next I was sick....aching limbs...and the feeling of no energy at all....and that is where I am right now....

I haven't ridden my bike since my ride at training camp last Thursday....the timing couldn't be much worse as on Sunday I am entered into the Jurassic Beast Sportive with others from the team...

I have got to say that since my treatment I seem more susceptible to picking up every bug that's around...a shot immune system or something like that....anyway I have now got three clear days to recover...prepare...and ride.

Day Four of 10in10 Training Camp.

Today was the last full day of our training Camp. John and Lorenzo both had to return home due to work so it was just Jon and I for the final day....
The weather was glorious much as it has been all week but even warmer. We completed a large loop taking in Coombe Bissett...Rockbourne... part of the Northern New Forest....Lintern....Cranborne.... Farnham
and then back to our camp.
It was a total mileage of just under sixty miles, although Jon did find it necessary to go down the road and back to push it to just over that sixty Mark.
We stopped off at a pub on the edge of the New Forest for lunch. I had a large coffee and a tuna sandwich which was in the real doorstep tradition...all five inches in height of it.
This past few days has been really enjoyable, the weather has been brilliant and the riding has been superb. It has also enabled the team to all get to know each other better as well as to become familiar with each member of the teams riding style.
Tomorrow we will break camp and return home.... This coming weekend is a bank holiday and we don't want to still be on the site when it fills up with tourists and weekend holiday makers.!!!! That wouldn't do at all!!

Day Three of 10in10 Training Camp

Day Three of training Camp and we were joined for today's ride by Peter Calcutt of the backpack club.... Again the good weather continues,and some of the team are even suffering with mild sunburn...nothing that a pot of yogurt won't cure if the waitress in the restaurant where we had tonight's meal is to be believed. After returning from today's ride we thought it would be a good idea to try to fit  the bikes on the motorhome Good job we tried it out..three will fit but one will have to travel in the van..Tomorrow we plan a ride into the New Forest and back, the weather is looking good too..!